There are more than half a million apps on the market. If you know exactly which app you are looking for, finding it can be relatively easy; however, sifting through the volume of apps one by one to find the right one for the right task can be overwhelming.
What’s more difficult, is stumbling across that magic app that you never would have thought to search for. At Bing, we are helping people with this “serendipitous discovery” by surfacing relevant apps automatically in the context of normal search queries. You can try this out right now on the iPhone in the Bing for Mobile app or m.bing.com in the web browser of your iPhone. Here are a few ways Bing is making it easier for you to find that ‘right’ app:
Auto app discovery
Auto app discovery is a unique feature created by Bing. The Bing search engine will surface apps in the context of normal web queries. For example, Thor 3D, Facebook and Hotels in Seattle are some of the queries for which Bing automatically finds the right apps:
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“Thor 3D” |
“Facebook” |
“Hotels in Seattle” |
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Explicit App Search
Bing also can find the app you are searching for using the app name or other criteria. For example, queries such as: Top iPhone Apps, News Apps and Download Fruit Ninja, all have app search as the primary intent.
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“News Apps” |
“Download Fruit Ninja” |
“Top iPhone Apps” |
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Deep Launch into Apps
Bing not only helps to find apps, but can also launch some of the installed apps directly from the app search results. If an App is not installed on your phone, when you click on the download link Bing takes you to download the app from the iTunes App Store. If the App is already installed and the developer has enabled the launch functionality, then it will launch automatically. For example, over 50 Apps such as Yelp, Facebook and IMDb can be launched directly from the Bing app search. Some of these apps even support deep launching with context (e.g. Yelp or IMDb). So if I’m searching for “Thor 3D” and I have the IMDb app already installed then clicking on the download link next to the IMDb icon will launch the app directly from the search experience taking me to the results of Thor in the IMDb app.
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“Thor 3D” query shows IMDb |
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Clicking on “download” takes you to Thor results on IMDb |
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Go Bing It!
Now that you know how cool the Bing app search feature is, go try it out on your iPhone
Mujahid Hasan, Program Manager, Bing